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My father was a Royal Naval Officer and retained a gun metal blue .45 Naval revolver.

And I vividly remember we all went for a picnic on the Georges River in Sydney, and when we were in the middle of the bay, my father, at my mother's bidding, dropped this gun metal blue Navy revolver over the side.

It was a poignant moment.

I've never lived with my dad so I've never seen his rifle, but one of the books he had me read after we met (I was 27) was The Ugly American. He also had me watch Full Metal Jacket. He said it was as close as anything he'd seen to his experience.

I get the impression he probably wasn't supposed to keep the rifle, which would be why he still has it. He's not fond of our government.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” ~ John Rogers

Gun culture is yet another romanticized aspect of the “exceptional” past society that conservatives bemoan the loss of. (like the supposed sexual morality Christians conservatives used to focus on).
Everybody wants to be John Wayne and have the “showdown at the OK corral” and blow the smoke off their pistol and ride off into the sunset; (but it doesn’t usually go quite that way in actual gun battles!)

Being that a lot of gun opposition is from politicians from big cities that have gun problems, and many of these gun advocates are the same ones that look down on other groups (especially in cities) and even gloat "see, look at their violence against each other", "they're just takers, leeches, thugs", etc; I think they want guns to be easy to get for everyone (including the criminals), in part so 'those people' in the cities can hopefully kill each other off. (While they then use the statistics to prove their point about these people and their "problems"; and of course, the gun advocate rooting for this hundreds of miles away still has their own guns to feel safe in case any of these people, or the government, ever happens to comes after them!)
Why else would they oppose so strongly just a background check? (or whatever that was the Democrats tried to pass, and was shot down; no pun intended).

No matter which Party gets elected in Oz, half of the electorate are not fond of the present government, but we would never think of arming ourselves against the present government, we wait patiently at the ballot box.

In fact the idea of arming ourselves against the Party in government seems bizarre.

In a liberal democracy the Law reflects the tradition of the Common Law, Statute Law, the policies of the elected government, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights confers no Right to Bear Arms. The Common Law confers no Right to Bear Arms. So you justify your gun culture with a dodgy interpretation of your Constitution.

I am pointing out that gun laws reflect the views of the governed, as they should in a democracy. As public preferences evolve, so will our laws. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has already been addressed by others.

I've been called a criminal, a terrorist, and a threat to the known universe. But everything you were told is a lie. The truth is, they've taken our freedom, our home, and our future. The time has come for all humanity to take a stand...

These guns will not get picked up by security metal detectors and can impose a huge security threat in the future.

We already went through this 20+ years ago with Glocks.

You can print a plastic receiver. You can also print a plastic magazine. That that is not a functioning gun. In order to make a magazine work, it needs a spring, and in order for it to be reliable that spring would need to be steel. And the ammo inside it would most likely be lead bullets with copper jackets in brass casing. You also need a chamber and barrel, which would most likely be steel, because a plastic one wouldn't be able to hold up to the strain very well or have effective rifling.

1w2-6w5-3w2 so/sp

"I took one those personality tests. It came back negative." - Dan Mintz

No matter which Party gets elected in Oz, half of the electorate are not fond of the present government, but we would never think of arming ourselves against the present government, we wait patiently at the ballot box.

In fact the idea of arming ourselves against the Party in government seems bizarre.

Oh, my dad is the next best thing to a pacifist and he thinks gun nuts are crazy and stupid. It's more that he likes the idea of pilfering things to 'stick it to the man.' He's very glad he never had to shoot anyone during the war. He also told me to never believe that Americans do not commit war crimes because he's seen it happen.

It's not logical to think small arms could resist a military the size of ours or all of our militarized police forces. We could never organize such a thing anyway because all of our communications are monitored and we send the ATF after anyone who looks like they could pose any kind of threat. IMO, the government lets people keep their small private arsenals to give them a false sense of security. People think they are free and can defend themselves from government oppression as long as they have their security blanket, in this case, guns.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” ~ John Rogers

Being that a lot of gun opposition is from politicians from big cities that have gun problems, and many of these gun advocates are the same ones that look down on other groups (especially in cities) and even gloat "see, look at their violence against each other", "they're just takers, leeches, thugs", etc; I think they want guns to be easy to get for everyone (including the criminals), in part so 'those people' in the cities can hopefully kill each other off. (While they then use the statistics to prove their point about these people and their "problems"; and of course, the gun advocate rooting for this hundreds of miles away still has their own guns to feel safe in case any of these people, or the government, ever happens to comes after them!)

This seems a little out there to me - I'm well acquainted with this debate, and I've never seen this articulated by anyone. It seems kind of bizarre and extreme even for the staunchest NRA acolyte.

Why else would they oppose so strongly just a background check? (or whatever that was the Democrats tried to pass, and was shot down; no pun intended).

Because of who is conducting the background check. If one of the stated reasons for the right to bear arms is to prevent tyranny (and for whatever anyone thinks of the validity of that notion, it is in fact one of the stated reasons), then allowing the government to subjectively decide who can and can't have a gun is defeating the entire purpose.

This seems a little out there to me - I'm well acquainted with this debate, and I've never seen this articulated by anyone. It seems kind of bizarre and extreme even for the staunchest NRA acolyte.

Because of who is conducting the background check. If one of the stated reasons for the right to bear arms is to prevent tyranny (and for whatever anyone thinks of the validity of that notion, it is in fact one of the stated reasons), then allowing the government to subjectively decide who can and can't have a gun is defeating the entire purpose.

Nobody's ever said that (that I know of); it's not one of those things the average mainstream conservative would ever admit. (we can say it's in the "shadow" of the debate!)

But the entire ghetto (as well as so-called "illegal" immigrants, now) have become pariahs to this segment of society, and you can hear it in the political rhetoric, especially after Trayvon, most recently (Again, their own shadow stoked up, they fire back "what about Chicago, Detroit"?, etc.)
I got that deduction from the fact that Bloomberg and other northern big city mayors' concern was people going to these gun areas out of state and bringing them back to use in crimes. They are not trying to take away all handguns, sports rifles, etc. the gun lobby claims the government is trying to take from them (And then comparing this to Hitler and every other totalitarian regime). They're trying to get rid of powerful assault weapons, and make it harder for people to get other guns illegally.

But the gun lobby, citing the "Constitution — 2nd Amendment"; insist all of this stuff should be readily available. They refuse to address the concern of assault weapons as well as crime, and as much as the same people like to point at urban crime to isolate (splitting, psychologically) "those people" and their "problems". (If you think I'm exaggerating, go to some conservative Facebook pages, or look at the memes and links. I see it every day, and from one or two "friends" alone!)
So for them to dismiss that concern like that I figure they would probably like for the inner cities to be filled with killing, because it reduced the threat ("those people") to themselves and supports their projection of violence onto others, and that these people are just "problems"; they won't help themselves, probably can't be helped (this is where the statistics come in; the "hard facts" as they call it), so they need to just be eliminated in one way or another; and so stop taking our tax money and giving it all to them (which itself is a greatly distorted or overhyped claim).

The past couple of years (and overall, the past 30 or more years), this is what this movement has focused on. So then, they play victim (as much as they criticize others for that), and imagine this scenario where all these ghetto people, illegal immigrants, etc. and a big bad government supporting them led by "Socialist dictator King Obama" are all coming to get them. So they want these assault weapons; so it's like they're planning an armed war against the government.

I think they're really distorting the intention of the 2nd Amendment. I've never even seen any of them really even deal with the question of "well organized militia". It seems every roadside joe wants to be his own militia. So while yes, the people should be free to oppose a tyrannical government, on the other hand,
1) the people need to be sure the government is tyrannical to begin with, or are they simply exaggerating because everything is not the way they want it.
2) Since a lot of this stuff is a matter of interpretation, projection, exaggeration, etc., the government has the right to maintain some type of order and protect itself from uprisings and seditions (Which do affect "the general welfare" of others who don't want to be apart of that stuff).

The debate is who is right. Is it genuinely tyranny, or is it a bunch of people who just want more power than legitimately granted them? Like perhaps to subject others (especially since this movement seems to think other people are such a "problem", and that the nation's past, (when these people were corralled), was so great, and we should return to it.
These may be the wannabe dictators themselves, but of course no one will ever admit that. So they claim to be the oppressed ones.

In reality, I think it's a bit of both; a nation of imperfect people being ruled over by a government of imperfect people, so no one will ever be completely satisfied, and will always want more, blame others, try to take rule over others, etc. (I attribute to my P preference being able to point out problems, inconsistencies, etc. but not being able to identify much of a better solution).

But the gun issue is something that should be addressed ore, as people I think do have a right to be able to be less worried about being shot; but many people want the romanticism of the Wild Wild West, and that's all that matters to them.

War Among the People and the Security State

Originally Posted by Eric B

the entire ghetto (as well as so-called "illegal" immigrants, now) have become pariahs to this segment of society, and you can hear it in the political rhetoric, especially after Trayvon, most recently (Again, their own shadow stoked up, they fire back "what about Chicago, Detroit"?, etc.)

The problem is how to justify the Security State.

Justifying the Security State when nuclear weapons have made war among States passé, is difficult, unless we replace war among States with war among the people.

And with war among the people gone global, from the killing yesterday of innocents on a Chinese railway station, to the killing of innocents on the streets of the Ukraine, and in many other countries, it seems natural to want the Security State to protect us. And it makes sense to give up some of our freedoms for security. But once given up, it is difficult or impossible to get our freedoms back.

From the perspective of the Security State, they are defending the core against the periphery. But with mass migration, the periphery is now within the core.

So now the war between the periphery and the core is beng fought within the core. And so we now have war among the people.

That I'm aware of. As I just said, both state and private consist of imperfect humans who want power over others, and you run to one to protect you from the other, and then that one rules over you with an iron fist, one way or the other.